Good sense on the aid budget and defence, at last....
22 February 2013
The Government has rightly decided to divert cash from the overseas aid budget to defence. The idea is to fund peacekeeping and such-like operations from the aid budget not the defence budget.
The Government has rightly decided to divert cash from the overseas aid budget to defence. The idea is to fund peacekeeping and such-like operations from the aid budget not the defence budget.
This is a perfect match. A more stable country is the best way to help many of those suffering in many a third world hell-hole. Only through peace and a more stable government can they get the infrastructure they need for a better future. Spending money on schools in these countries without the security to stop rebels burning them down again is a sure way to be doing no more than chasing your tail.
Naturally the vested interests in the aid industry are complaining. They, of course, are quite happy with the never ending supply of humanitarian aid that keeps them in a job. Creating a more stable environment in which economies can flourish and be weaned off aid is not in the personal best interests of the boss of Oxfam and similar types.
A good move from the government. This will free up cash for more of the equipment our forces need to do their job.
- So you prefer to spend £billions in a never ending cycle treating the symptoms instead of treating the cause?
Funnily enough - that is very like bog standard socialist thinking, bankrupt the country treating symptoms while making the causes of our problems worse. - As I have alluded to. The UK makes it easier for firms operating in developing and under-developed nations to avoid coughing-up tax-wise to the respective administrations. This same tax is of no Benefit to the UK economy, yet it is from UK taxation that the aid budget comes.
Is there no advantage to be got from yielding the tax due to these developing countries to help them help themselves?
It is clear you prefer the beggar-my-neighbour approach. - You are too obsessed with tax, Tom. Tax is as much a major part of the problem as anything else. It certainly does not offer the solutions to the world's problems. What countries like the Sudan need more than anything is stability and security and there is no better way to spend the aid budget.
- Tax is money Barry, again you transfer your own fixations on to me, I don't mind, it's not as if we are using up ink.
If we are to encourage the unreasonable syphoning-off of a nations wealth from the bottom while pumping our own tax (money) in at the top in the form of arms and military expertise why should anybody be the least surprised when the citizens of these respective Nation States get a tad irked?
This is Imperialism, plain and simple. - i doubt whether much aid money has ever helped the poor in the recipient countries, the intention is usually to sweeten things up for u.k. companies to win contracts.
- Tom - so it is imperialism to help stabilise countries and send in peacekeeping forces to stop genocide, tell the UN that.
The truth is that the people in a lot of these countries were a better off when they were actually ruled under Pax Britannica as part of the British Empire. - Tell the UN what?
I see no equivalence between what the Blue-Caps do and the concerted efforts to drain the resources of a country and aid and abet some pro-western nut case in the suppression of native dissenters.
It all appears to be little more than the Miner's Strike writ large.
The 'truth' is that a slave is an asset and an employee a liability. - This is about peacekeeping and using the aid budget to fund these activities, this is the sort of thing the UN does - exactly what I am talking about. You claim below this is imperialism, if so then the UN are guilty of that too. Follow your own logic. But then logic and clear headed common sense is not something the guilt ridden middle class lefties, people like you, (whether champagne quaffing or not) are not exactly brimming with.
- If it is doing what the UN do, why not leave it to the UN?
It can hardly be any logic of mine you complain of, you are the only one saying 'peace', I say 'piece'. - Tom the UN does not have its own forces, all it can do is call upon those of its members. When our troops are wearing blue hats they ARE the UN.
- I make no mention of the UN having it's own troops, Barry makes no mention of our troops acting in a Blue-Cap capacity.
But, anyway Peter you will have kept some looker-in up to the minute. - Twisting and turning like mad there Tom.
Schools eh? Who needs them.